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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Turkish Banks Go for Gold to Lure $302 Billion Hoard

By Sibel Akbay -
Oct 29, 2012 6:01 PM ET

Deniz Kalkan, a 32-year-old
housewife in Istanbul, is ready to move her gold.
“I’ll put these in a deposit account as soon as I get the
time,” Kalkan said of the half-dozen gold coins she has
collected and stashed in her apartment. “It’s much safer to
keep them in the bank than at home.When Kalkan brings in her coins, she’ll be joining a wave
of Turks responding to a drive to lure an estimated $302 billion
of hidden gold into the economy to help ease the nation’s
current-account deficit, the world’s biggest after the U.S.
Gold-based deposit accounts surged 15 percent this year through
the end of July, three times the increase in standard savings
accounts, according to the central bank.
The gold accounts give customers an amount in Turkish lira
equivalent to the weight of the precious metal they turn over to
the bank. They can then withdraw cash or take out loans, while
the lender is able to sell or hold onto the gold.
At Yapi Kredi Bankasi AS (YKBNK), owned by UniCredit SpA (UCG) and Koc
Holding AS (KCHOL), deposits in gold-based mutual funds, which invest at
least 51 percent of their money in precious metals and offer a
guaranteed return on capital, increased 62 percent in 2012.
Turkiye Is Bankasi AS (ISCTR), Turkey’s largest bank by assets, said
gold deposits increased 10-fold in the two years through June.
The campaign by Turkey’s banks, featuring ads for “golden
age” accounts and products such as gold gift checks, is
targeted at Turks who traditionally give gold coins or jewelry
as presents at weddings, births and circumcision ceremonies.

Spain Reminds Us That The Worst Is Yet To Come In Europe

Spain, which has the 4th largest economy in Europe, is
currently struggling with high unemployment (the highest unemployment
rate in Europe), increased borrowing costs, a stressed banking system
and rising tensions amongst its citizens as it relates to austerity
measures being considered by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Does this sound all too familiar? Take out the word “Spain” and
insert the word “Greece” and the first sentence might have been the
beginning of one of my market commentaries from several months ago.

R

Economist Provides Blueprint for Financial Survival: The worst is yet to come.

That’s the message coming from leading economists when asked about our country’s financial future.

Jim Rogers says we face “financial Armageddon.”

Peter Schiff said that 2008 “wasn’t the real crash. The real crash is coming.”

And Marc Faber simply says, “We are doomed.”

Here are the indisputable facts: In the last year, our nation’s credit
was downgraded for the first time in history, and Moody’s recently
warned of another possible downgrade in 2013.

Our national debt is nearly $16 trillion, or nearly $51,000 for every
man, woman, and child in America. And, if you count those too
discouraged to look for work, or working part-time because they cannot
find full-time employment, the unemployment rate is 15%.

And here’s why a group of leading economists are worried: We have
managed this abysmal “recovery” even with interest rates at historic
lows.

David Brooks: ‘It has been the worst campaign I’ve ever covered’

On this weekend’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist David Brooks — who was once profoundly impressed with President Barack Obama — admitted he has soured on the president.
“Well, you know, I think — well, I first think it has been the worst
campaign I’ve ever covered,” Brooks said. “And I think they’re both
ending on the same note they started. Obama’s doing a negative campaign.
He’s got an ad out which is called ‘Remember,’ which is about Obama —
which is about Romney, the plutocrat. It’s about the flip-flop what
we’ve just heard on the stump. So it’s almost pure negativity.”

Is This Really the Worst Economic Recovery Since the Depression?

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver AnalyticsChart
shows change in each indicator from trough of business cycle to
following peak. Numbers for current recovery refer to the change from
the business cycle trough in June 2009 to the most recent month or
quarter for which data are available. Categories measured in dollars are
adjusted for inflation. Corporate profits were adjusted using the gross
domestic product implicit price deflator.

14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever

Click to view gallery: The 112th Congress is a no good, very bad, terrible Congress. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

This week, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the
Affordable Care Act. On its own, such a vote would be unremarkable.
Republicans control the House, they oppose President Obama’s health
reform law, and so they voted to get rid of it.
But here’s the punchline: This was the 33rd time they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Holding that vote once makes sense. Republicans had promised that
much during the 2010 campaign. But 33 times? If doing the same thing
twice and expecting a different result makes you insane, what does doing
the same thing 33 times and expecting a different result make you?
Well, it makes you the 112th Congress.
Hating on Congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark
Twain’s old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you
were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112th
Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible
Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever
had. Here, I’ll prove it:1. They’re not passing laws.
Let’s start with the simplest measure of congressional productivity:
the number of public bills passed into law per Congress. The best data
on this comes from the annual “resume of congressional activity,” which
goes back to the 80th Congress — the same Congress President Harry
Truman dubbed the “do-nothing Congress.” But they did a lot more than
this Congress: